I have a stubborn streak a mile wide, inherited from a mother whose never much liked people telling her what to do, either. I'm obstinate and headstrong, both traits that can be valuable but usually just get me labeled a bitch. I'm paralyzingly terrified of failure.

These traits make it difficult to get things done, sometimes.

I'd be lying if I said I was happy with myself recently. I'd be lying if I said I said I was generally happy, recently. So I'm sitting here wondering if I can do what it takes to be not not happy, and whether the sacrifice is worth it.

Funny thing, sacrifice. It can mean so many things to so many different people. For some, it's passing up the easy opportunity for something more difficult and less rewarding. For others, it's passing up the rewarding thing in order to make sure they can make rent. For me, right now, it's giving up, failing, dropping away from something I really enjoy doing, even as it kills me.

It's easy to be objective about a baseball team, it's hard to be objective about yourself. Even as I sit, paralyzed by fear and emotion, accomplishing nothing and being incredibly noisy while doing so, I can't admit to myself that maybe it's the way it should be, because this would be me, giving up.

I've fought so much, taught myself so much, looked for answers and driven miles and gotten migraines. What does it mean if I step back from this, if I step back from doing what I really can't imagine myself without, now, in order to try to grasp at a future?

It wouldn't be a complete letting go, but even opening my hand that little bit and feeling the sand I've fought so hard to hold spill out makes me want to break apart. I have to make a choice, and it feels impossible.

I've stubbornly clung to this for two years, two years longer than anyone thought I would, and I can't let go, even as the tide pulls me away and my fingers bleed from clinging to the sharp iron bars that I thought I could handle. Why give up? Why give in? Isn't this surrender? Isn't this failure?

Isn't this what I was afraid of?